At the time of writing, I’m just three weeks into my new role as Chief Executive Officer at the ECC. First impressions matter. You can learn a lot about the culture and values of an organisation by how people are welcomed. All the Executive Committee planned to come to Wellington on my first day, but with the Auckland COVID-19 lockdown restricting most of the group, they haven’t been anywhere other than their home or the supermarket for some time. I felt their plan to be there for my first day was a bold and embracing step - however, it was also daunting to think that the entire team would be around as I struggled to find where to put my bag, how to work the phone and log in to my computer. These are all little tasks we take for granted every day that become routine, but on your first day, everything is new and different. This may be why people often forget half of the things people tell them on their first day, and yes, you should make a mental note here to tweak your induction processes for future new staff! Sue Kurtovich was there on my first day. Members will know Sue very well from her long history with us, and the way she’s expertly managed breaking issues through Peter leaving in August and when I started in October. Sue has led countless webinars, taking Ministry of Education guidance and information and turning it into regular, reliable and digestible expert support for our busy members. We continue to see strong demand for Sue’s sessions and members can access sessions they missed on our website. I hope these sessions have really helped you make sense of the Health Orders and official guidance by putting them in plain language, while thinking through the implications for you and our members in an engaging way. There’s never been a better time to join the ECC. In these recent months, the ECC has ramped up efforts to meet the number one priority for our members today – responding to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. And a crisis it surely is - naming things that challenge or threaten us is a subtle but effective way to start to control it. Language can be a powerful tool indeed. When I speak with our members, I’m finding people who feel stressed, strung out and just need to speak to someone to check they’ve understood the latest major change or development properly. Every single one of them has been passionate about early learning - I’ve enjoyed the conversations and found them motivating and inspirational. They’ve really helped my thinking about how we can best support you. We’re a diverse organisation with a firm commitment to quality early learning at our heart. This is just where we should be. But there’s considerable work ahead to make sure our sector’s regulation and funding settings actually support our members to deliver quality, and doesn’t hinder it - this is where I see the ECC providing highly effective support. In coming months we’ll develop an ECC policy work programme. This will be an ambitious undertaking, and will necessarily take a much broader view of the relatively fluid policy context. This is necessary so we can prioritise what to focus on - there are too many areas of change to be able to deal with all of them at once. Prioritising is another helpful way to control something that is inherently uncontrollable – you have to choose, and having a plan makes it a deliberate choice. No organisation can do it all at once, it’s important we focus our time and money properly. For many New Zealanders, early learning has been compartmentalised into one box – simply education and care as part of the MESSAGE CEO's December 2021 { 8 }
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